The Beauty That Remains Read online

  “Logan,” he said. And that brought me back from wherever it was I’d gone. I blinked. I registered that the song he’d put on before our first kiss was playing—a song he’d added to my playlist to be cute. Then I lost it.

  “Seriously?” I started. And I don’t even know what else I said. I know I screamed a lot. I know I threw a few of his things across his room. I remember being grateful that his mother wasn’t home.

  He kept quiet and let me freak out, just waiting for Hurricane Logan, as he used to call my temper tantrums, to pass.

  When I finally stood still, I was out of breath and shaking. He looked at me with his sad, green eyes and asked me to sit beside him on the bed.

  His hands were sweaty when he pulled me toward him, so it was easy for me to twist my wrists out of his grip. I sat down across the room, where he couldn’t touch me.

  “I know this changes things,” he said, like it was raining and we had plans to have a goddamned picnic.

  He said, “You’re a huge part of my life,” like I was just a sport he liked to play. “I don’t want you to disappear on me.”

  I flared my nostrils and kept staring at him because I couldn’t believe he’d think I’d be okay with him loving someone else. If I couldn’t be with him, I knew I’d have to disappear. He must have known it, too.

  I could never be just his friend. On top of the agonizing heartbreak, the asshole had left me all alone with this undeniable knowledge about myself: I liked boys. Bram was the first boy I’d ever kissed. The first person I’d ever loved. But loving Bram was one thing; it was easy. It felt right. Being gay was something else entirely—and it was scary as hell.

  People had already given me shit my whole life about being weird. The first time I wore nail polish to school, a kid punched me in the stomach. So to be honest, I was kinda pissed that I was gay. I was definitely pissed that Bram wasn’t exactly gay. He didn’t love me anymore—that hurt like hell. And the worst part of it all was Yara. That he was breaking up with me for a girl, when I didn’t even know he liked girls. And on top of everything else, she’s a cheerleader!

  I stared at him for too long. At his golden-brown skin and dark hair. I thought about telling him I loved him one last time.

  “It’s possible to love two people at once,” he said, and that was just way more than I could take.

  His eyes were still shining when I stood up, walked over, and punched him in the face so hard, I broke his nose and one of my own fingers.

  Most people would stop there, but not this guy.

  We were both sobbing, covered in snot and blood and tears. But before I left his room I said it. The worst thing I’ve ever said to anyone, and I can never take it back:

  I hope you die alone.

  I guess I got my wish.

  It hits me then, what Ms. Lassiter said: He’s been different since this summer. And I wonder if he was different, sadder, because of me. Because of what I said in a moment of rage. A moment I didn’t apologize for and that I’ll never be able to take back.

  My mom is still knocking. I slam my laptop closed before I finally go to the door, unintentionally killing the music because there’s no way I want to risk her seeing his videos on my screen, seeing just how deep my obsession with Bram goes. I scrub at my face, like there’s a hope in hell I can make myself look human again before she sees me. But when I open the door I can tell by her face that mine is still red and blotchy, swollen and ugly.

  “Oh, Lo,” she says.

  She only calls me that if I’m sick. Or when she’s scared.

  I’ve been bigger than her since before I started dating Bram, but sometimes it seems like she forgets. When she hugs me, her face just kind of smashes into my chest.

  “I had no idea you were this upset.”

  I want to say No shit. But I don’t.

  My chin trembles against the top of her head, and I squeeze the soft fabric of her sweater so I don’t hold her too tightly. Her wavy red hair sticks to my damp cheeks.

  They say that dead people who have unfinished business with the living become ghosts. That their spirits linger here, or in limbo somewhere, and that they can’t rest in peace until they’ve done whatever it is that they needed to do. But no one ever talks about the living who have unfinished business with the dead. Where is the plane they’re banished to, and how do they ever find peace again?

  What’s to become of fuck-ups like me?

  “Logan?” my mom says, bringing me back to my room and her warm, soft arms. She backs up a little so she can look up at my face, but then she looks around me, and I follow her line of sight. She puts her hand on her hip, and that means trouble.

  “Is that your father’s bourbon on your desk?”

  Shit.

  BAMF // SASHA’S SENSES REVIEW…REVENGE OF THE TERDS

  Looks like: poop

  Smells like: poop

  Sounds like: poop

  (If it looks, smells, and sounds like something, it’s probably that thing. Also: See band name. I wonder if their pun was intended.)

  0/5

  I’m exhausted at breakfast the next morning because I ran until dawn, thinking things through. Mom was sleeping when I got back, so she has no idea I was out that late. Her eyes are puffy this morning. She’s playing her go-to sad music almost as loudly as I was playing Unraveling Lovely last night, so I know she probably spent most of her time in the shower crying. She’s never let me see her lose it, but I heard it in her voice last night on the phone. I know the signs of her sadness. I kind of want to lean toward her now and say something annoying like I thought we’d go deaf from music this loud? to make her smile and say something like You can blast your music when you own a house. But I don’t.

  Her dark eyes linger on me for a beat too long when I first step into the kitchen (probably because I actually ironed my shirt today), but she’s the one who taught me to dress the way I want to feel. This lesson is why Sasha had so many floral dresses and brightly colored sweaters—she always wanted to look better than she felt. And since I want to try to be better, for Mom, I thought a wardrobe change was in order. I’m still wearing jeans (Rome wasn’t built in a day). But I thought a nice shirt wouldn’t hurt. So Mom looks at me but doesn’t say anything. She’s dressed to the corporate nines as usual, so maybe she just gets it.

  We fall into our normal routine. In the mornings, Mom and I move around each other like planets in orbit. We’re used to living without Sasha, because she was in the hospital so often, but somehow, she still left this gaping hole right through the middle of everything. Sometimes the morning is the only time Mom and I will see each other all day, but we still don’t say much.

  When I go to the cabinet and pull down the cereal, Mom is at the sink, filling the kettle for her tea. I open the fridge for the milk and I grab Mom a yogurt while I’m in there. I don’t toss it to her, the way I normally would. I set it on the table beside her, and she seems surprised by the change. She had already put down her mug, prepared to catch it, but she just says “Thanks.” She hands me a banana as I fill my bowl, and then we both look at the empty toaster.

  If Sasha were home, I’d drop the bread and Mom would lay out the butter and jam. Even if she were at the hospital, I’d text Sasha and ask what she wanted and then show Mom my phone with her answer. But Sasha isn’t here. Sasha isn’t anywhere. So I say “See ya,” and Mom kisses my forehead before I push open the door.

  It starts then. The hungry kind of missing-Sasha that makes me feel like she’s just out of reach, not gone forever, and I’m just not trying hard enough to get to her. The thing inside me that’s always on edge drops off its cliff. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired or if I’ll never get used to something as simple as not making toast for my sister, but as I climb onto my bike, I feel overwhelmed and alone again. I manage to make it to the end of the block befor
e I’m crying, my chest tightening, like someone has me pinned and is sitting on top of my body. I pull up behind an empty bus stop shelter and lay my bike in the grass before sinking down beside it.

  I take out my phone and pull up photo after photo of Sasha, and when I can swallow without it making my entire throat ache, I open my browser. The cursor blinks defiantly inside the search bar, and my thumbs hover over the keyboard for only a second.

  I type: Are you still a twin if your twin dies?

  I slowly scan the results, but before I can even find an answer, I see the word “twinless” so many times that my throat tightens up like it did at the club, and starts to hurt again.

  I didn’t even know that was a word. It shouldn’t be a word.

  I stare down at Sasha’s plastic hospital bracelet. I can hardly make out her name anymore because the ink is so badly faded. But it’s there, just barely: MALONE, SASHA. I kiss it the way I’ve kissed it a few times a day since the night I slipped it off her skinny wrist and onto mine. I look back at the screen (at the unbearable “twinless” search results) and throw my phone into my backpack.

  * * *

  —

  At school, I wait for Rohan in the parking lot. I wave to Callie and Deedee as I’m locking up my bike. Deedee comes over and hugs me, and Callie asks if I listened to the edit of her latest BAMF podcast. “Not yet,” I tell her. “This weekend for sure.”

  She points at me and says, “You’d better.” She looks me up and down, her eyes settling on my shirt. “Why are you dressed like you have an interview?”

  “Just, you know, trying something new. ‘Dress to impress’ and all that?”

  Callie frowns. Then she shrugs. “If you say so.”

  Deedee loops her arm through mine the way she always does, like she doesn’t want me to float away.

  “Come in with us,” she says.

  “I’m waiting for Ro,” I tell her. “I need him to help me with something. Save me a seat in first period?” She pouts a little, but she nods before heading inside. Callie waves and follows her.

  I joke around with a few kids from cross-country, and borrow some chemistry notes from a guy in my class, and still no Rohan. My fingers are getting cold, and I’m just about done waiting when Jerome spots me and heads in my direction.

  “Hey, Shay,” he says, and somehow my name sounds different when it’s coming through his lips. He’s wearing a fedora today, and a big overcoat, so he looks a bit like an old-school mobster. His fingers stay tucked in his pockets, but the way he gently taps my arm with his elbow makes me wish he’d touch me with his hands.

  “You ready for today?” he says. He’s not referring to a test or anything. It’s just something he always asks me, like every morning is something to prepare for, something harder than the day before it. And I guess, sometimes, days do feel that way. I smile.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Cool,” he says. He bends his knees and cups his hands over his mouth. His rings shine as he blows against his fingers and watches me. He has bristly black hair that I always want to touch, and his skin and eyes are almost the same shade of coppery brown. There’s something so familiar about his face, even though I’d never seen a face like it before I met him. If I look at him for long enough, I start to feel a little less lost.

  And how do you tell someone that their face is your compass, your North Star, without sounding like a weirdo?

  My eyes flicker from his eyes to his lips. I’m trying to be a new and improved version of myself, but I think it’s okay if I still kiss him. So I kiss him, because it’s easy and he lets me, and I feel in control of my body and my life during every precious second our mouths are touching. I wonder how these kisses make him feel, but I don’t ask.

  “It’s cold,” he says. “Walk in with me?”

  I scan the lot one more time, but I still don’t see Rohan.

  “ ’Kay,” I say.

  * * *

  —

  When I find Ro at lunch he’s bouncing the way he always does right before band practice, like the music is under his skin or inside his bones and it can’t wait to get out. But when he sees me leaning against his locker, his walking immediately loses a bit of its rhythm.

  He breaks away from his other friends. I wave to them as they move farther down the hall.

  “Hey,” he says, stopping a few feet away from me. He dips his thumbs into his pockets and looks at me through a mop of dark, messy hair. His eyes are a murky blackish-brown, like tea leaves or rain-soaked branches. They make me want to tell him everything.

  “Hey,” I say. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. I totally freaked, but can we talk?”

  I try not to look as pathetic as I feel when I reach out my hand, which is full of my weak attempt at an apology—watermelon taffy. This flavor is his favorite, and his breath is always grossly sweet with it. He doesn’t reach for it right away, which makes something inside me flicker, like a dying lightbulb, or a star. I bite my lip and lift my hand a little higher.

  He keeps watching me, like he’s trying to see if my apology is real. Or because I look exactly like his ex-girlfriend.

  I’m wearing another one of Sasha’s beanies today, so I pull it off, hoping to look less like her and more like me. This one says BAD HAIR DAY, and I got it for Sasha a few days after she shaved the last of her hair. She thought it was hilarious.

  “Of course we can talk,” he says, hitching his bag higher onto his shoulders with both thumbs. “But I’m still pissed you missed so much of my set.”

  I grin and push away from the lockers. I stick my arm between his backpack and his body, and I hug him from the side as he puts in his combination. “Please, please, please forgive me?” I beg.

  “Fiiiiiine,” he says.

  Rohan is tall and narrow, with wiry guitarist arms and lengthy runner legs, and I’m built pretty much just like him: long-limbed, boyish, and flat (just about everywhere). I can see our reflection in the mirror he has on the interior of his locker door. He musses his hair. I muss it too.

  He ducks and says, “This doesn’t happen by accident, you know,” gesturing at his sloppy hair, his crooked, dimpled grin. I roll my eyes.

  “Whatever. So,” I say. I turn around and glance at the thick swirl of bodies all around me, and it makes me feel a little dizzy, so I turn back to Rohan.

  “There’s something I need your help with.”

  “Okaaay,” he says, turning to look at me.

  “I need you to cover the Revenge of the Terds show tonight. For BAMF.”

  It isn’t like Rohan to be quiet for long, but he doesn’t say anything for almost a whole minute (which seems like forever).

  “Why?” he finally asks. He glances down at me. “And what are you wearing?”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh my god. It’s just a shirt.”

  He flicks the collar and points to the center of it. “It has buttons,” he says, smirking. “It’s not all wrinkly. Wait, did you iron it?”

  “Can you focus?” I ask. “The show, tonight. Can you do it?”

  “Why?” he says again. “You’ve never asked me to do anything for BAMF before. If I remember correctly, you said it would be a ‘conflict of interest.’ ”

  He’s right, I did say that. And it would be since he has a new band on the scene, and BAMF prides itself on its objectivity. But there are more important things than BAMF (though Callie would be pissed if I ever said that out loud). Plus, if I’m being honest, Sasha’s terrible review of Revenge is already posted. I don’t care too much about missing them, and anyway, I don’t want to be out late another night this week.

  “I have to study,” I say.

  Rohan blinks at me. “You have to study,” he repeats, and it doesn’t sound like he’s asking me a question, but I nod.

  He closes his locker slowly and presse
s the back of his hand against my forehead and then my cheek. I slap his hand away, and he laughs.

  “Since when do you study?” he asks.

  “Since now!” I say.

  Rohan’s face changes then. He squints at me.

  “Sorry,” he says. He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Is this about what happened last night? I’m sorry I played Sasha’s song, okay? I’m not going to play it again. I promise. You don’t have to skip tonight because of me.”

  Rohan lets his messy hair fall across his forehead. He hides his face if there is even the smallest chance he might blush or look sad. So now he hides his face every single time he talks about my sister.

  “It’s not that,” I say, touching his shoulder. “I swear. I just have a chemistry test. Look,” I say. I unzip my backpack. “I borrowed notes from a kid in my class.”

  Rohan looks at me, as if the notes aren’t proof enough. “I believe that you have a test,” he says. “But you don’t miss shows.” He doesn’t ask out loud, but I hear the question anyway: What else is going on?

  I stick the notes back into my bag. “It’s Mom,” I tell him. “I don’t want to stress her out. She’s been worried about Sasha for practically my whole life. I don’t want her to start worrying about me now. So I’m just trying to pull some of my grades out of the gutter. For her.”

  “I get that, I guess.” He nods and starts tapping his fingers on his thigh. “Speaking of BAMF, I saw the photo you posted last night,” he says. I look over, and his eyes are playful. “Trying to get hired to manage another band?” he asks.

  I smile, knowing that he’s changing the subject to make me feel better.

  “I already told you,” I say, rolling my eyes and playing along. “I’m done working for amateurs.”

  Rohan smiles. “That was really cool of you. We got, like, two hundred fifty new followers from that one post.”

  “No way,” I say. I take out my phone and go to his band’s account. They only had seventy-three followers yesterday. Now they have more than three hundred.